Cinemorphosis

Tag: fiction

  • From Corner Office Dreams to Carpool Reality: One Engineer’s Recession Watch

    From Corner Office Dreams to Carpool Reality: One Engineer’s Recession Watch

    I just got off the phone with my friend, a seasoned engineer marooned in the asphalt sprawl of Southern California, who sounded like a man peering over the edge of an economic cliff with a pair of shaky binoculars. The view? Grim. The engineering sector—usually a stalwart of rational planning and concrete outcomes—is now gripped by the wobbly-kneed fear of an incoming recession. Hiring freezes are spreading like a case of financial frostbite, and everyone’s waiting for the other steel-toed boot to drop.

    The culprits? Our beloved government’s carnival of tariff acrobatics—somersaults, swan dives, and the occasional flaming hoop—leaving the business sector in a state of chronic vertigo. With policy shifting by the hour and no clear sense of direction, companies are curling inward like startled armadillos, refusing to hire or spend, while consumers clutch their wallets like Victorian widows clutching pearls.

    Just a month ago, my friend had a juicy job offer on the table—complete with perks, prestige, and a corner office view of existential dread. He was mulling it over with the quiet satisfaction of a man whose talents were finally being recognized. But now? That same company has ghosted him like a bad Tinder date, citing “market uncertainty” and initiating a hiring freeze. Translation: they’ve lost their nerve and joined the swelling ranks of firms slamming shut the doors like it’s a zombie apocalypse.

    His current job, for now, is safe. But the interns? Sacrificed at the altar of “cost-cutting measures.” And his planned splurge—a shiny $50K car meant to serve as both reward and statement piece—has been downgraded to a practical vow of austerity. No V6 joyrides, no heated leather seats, just a cold reminder that in this economy, survival is the new luxury.

    “I’m just lucky to still be employed,” he said, with all the enthusiasm of a man clinging to a lifeboat made of unpaid invoices and canceled bonuses.

  • Lessons Learned from the Ring Light Apocalypse

    Lessons Learned from the Ring Light Apocalypse

    During lockdown, I never saw my wife more wrung out, more spiritually flattened, than the months her middle school forced her into the digital gladiator pit of live Zoom instruction. Every weekday morning, she stood before a pair of glaring monitors like a soldier manning twin turrets. At her feet, the giant ring light—a luminous, tripod-legged parasite—waited patiently to stub toes and sabotage serenity. It wasn’t just a lighting fixture; it was a metaphor for the pandemic’s unwanted intrusion into every square inch of our domestic life.

    My wife’s battle didn’t end with her students. She also took it upon herself to launch our twin daughters, then fifth-graders, into their own virtual classrooms—equally chaotic, equally doomed. I remember walking past their screens, peering at those sad little Brady Bunch tiles of glitchy faces and frozen smiles and thinking, This isn’t going to work. It didn’t feel like school. It felt like a pathetic simulation of order run by people trying to pilot a burning zeppelin from their kitchen tables.

    I, by contrast, got off scandalously easy. I teach college. My courses were asynchronous, quietly nestled in Canvas like pre-packed emergency rations. No live sessions. No tech panics. Just optional Zoom office hours, which no one attended. I sat in my garage doing kettlebell swings like a suburban monk, then retreated inside to play piano in the filtered afternoon light. The pandemic, for me, was a preview of early retirement: low-contact, low-stakes, and high in self-righteous tranquility.

    My wife envied me. She joked that teaching Zoom classes was like having your teeth drilled by a sadist who lectures you on standardized testing while fumbling with the pliers. And I laughed—too hard, because it wasn’t really a joke.

    The pandemic cracked open a truth I still wince at: the great domestic imbalance. I do chores, yes. I wipe counters, haul laundry, load the dishwasher. But my wife does the emotional heavy lifting—the million invisible tasks of motherhood, schooling, comforting, coordinating. During lockdown, that imbalance stopped being abstract. It stared me in the face.

    For me, quarantine was a hermit’s holiday. For her, it was a battlefield with bad Wi-Fi. And while I’m back to teaching and she’s back to something closer to normal, I haven’t forgotten the ring light, the glazed stare, or the guilt that hums quietly like a broken refrigerator in the back of my mind.

  • The Jungle, the Bigfoot, and the Fan Man Cometh

    The Jungle, the Bigfoot, and the Fan Man Cometh

    Last night I dreamed I was deep in the jungle—not metaphorically, mind you, but the kind you’d find on a Nature Channel special narrated by a vaguely concerned Brit. I wasn’t alone. Beside me stood a woman zookeeper in full khaki safari cosplay, complete with binoculars and a steel gaze. We weren’t observing wildlife—we were at war. The prize? A sprawling jungle compound. The opponent? A hulking, glowering Bigfoot-like brute who looked like he’d crawled out of my Neanderthal ancestry with unresolved issues and a gym membership.

    It was a reality show, naturally. Cameras everywhere. High stakes. Death possible. Maybe probable.

    What shocked me wasn’t the premise—it was me. I watched myself morph from suburban dad into a primal tactician, a creature with cunning in his marrow and bloodlust behind his bifocals. The zookeeper and I didn’t stand a chance physically, but we were shrewd, dirty-fighting strategists. While the beast snorted and stomped like a sentient linebacker, we set a trap—an elegant, jungle-engineered booby trap. And it worked. Bigfoot fell. Cue commercial break. Cue confetti.

    Victory was ours.

    But I, ever the responsible homeowner, sold my half of the prize to the zookeeper in exchange for a wad of cash and a sense of capitalist purpose. I left the jungle compound behind and made my triumphant return not to glory—but to shopping.

    I hit the beachside bazaar with missionary zeal, eyes blazing, nostrils flaring with sea air and consumer ambition. My quarry: fans. Tower fans. Desk fans. Oscillating fans. Fans with remotes, timers, and multi-speed whisper motors. Each vendor pitched their product like they were auditioning for Shark Tank. I nodded sagely as an assistant loaded box after box into a truck like I was provisioning for the end times—but with superior airflow.

    I had ventured into the heart of darkness, found my inner beast, won the battle, and returned not with enlightenment or moral clarity—but with high-performance climate control.

    In the dream’s strange logic, it made perfect sense. I had confronted the savage within, and now, armed with cutting-edge ventilation, I would cool the tempers of suburban life.

    This, apparently, is my idea of spiritual integration.

  • The Vegan Martyr of Suburbia

    The Vegan Martyr of Suburbia

    This is a story soaked in irony, clucking with heartbreak. It’s the tale of Ned Pearlman, a 63-year-old man whose conscience became his personal executioner.

    Ned was a lifelong weightlifter, a barrel-chested patriarch with calloused hands and a back catalog of deadlift anecdotes. When egg prices began to flirt with the absurd, his family took the Depression-era route and bought chickens. Backyard livestock as economic strategy.

    They started with a humble flock—a few hens, a rooster, and one poorly socialized silkie that pecked at everyone’s ankles. But something shifted in Ned. The hens began following him around the yard like starstruck interns. The rooster started presenting Ned with tributes: gum wrappers, pocket change, ornamental twigs. It was clear—Ned was the alpha.

    At night, the chickens would nestle beside him in bed, each with its own green velvet pillow like feathery courtiers in a royal suite. Ned, a man once fueled by steaks and protein shakes, looked into their beady eyes and saw innocent souls. Souls that changed him. He went vegan overnight.

    Not just vegan—missionary vegan. He researched. He supplemented. He downed algae-based omega-3s and pea protein smoothies that tasted like damp cardboard soaked in guilt. He clocked in 180 grams of protein a day, but his body, unimpressed by numbers, absorbed barely a fraction. The mighty Ned began to shrink.

    He became fatigued, confused. The barbell mocked him. His once-proud biceps began to resemble disillusioned baguettes. Despite his family’s desperate pleas—“just some yogurt, Ned, or a scoop of whey!”—he remained unwavering. This was a moral epiphany, not a diet. Animal products were betrayal. Flexibility was sin.

    Soon, the man who once bench-pressed lawn furniture was bedridden and showing signs of rapid cognitive decline. His doctor called it malnutrition-induced dementia. Ned called it sacrifice.

    His family, feeling abandoned, visited him rarely—guilt-visitations sprinkled in between Facebook posts and emotional exhaustion. But the chickens stayed. Loyal. Soft. Slightly judgmental. And the geriatric facility, either out of mercy or lack of clear policy, let them roost near him.

    One sunny afternoon, Ned was wheeled onto the grass. The chickens gathered around him, forming a feathered perimeter. In a rare moment of clarity, he looked to the sky and muttered, “Why, dear God, did my health not align with my ethics? Why must my clean conscience kill me and alienate those I love?”

    He received no reply. The clouds rolled by in soft indifference. Ned closed his eyes and died, flanked by his beaked apostles, surrounded by the warm, gentle souls that had rewritten his values—and slowly drained his life.

  • The Astroturf Gospel and the Temptation of Lilikoi

    The Astroturf Gospel and the Temptation of Lilikoi

    It’s Mother’s Day, which means my wife and twin daughters are headed to my sister-in-law’s house in Los Alamitos—land of perpetual canopies, well-behaved shrubbery, and a backyard lined with astroturf so immaculate it feels like a corporate fantasy of grass. It’ll be a dry 83 degrees, the kind of weather that screams “perfect” but secretly smells like sunscreen, grilled onions,and the cloying ghost of dryer sheets wafting from the laundry room, where the rhythmic hum of tumbling towels offers the unsettling ASMR of suburban captivity.

    Lunch will be irresistible smash burgers, sizzling beneath a pop-up tent while two imprisoned dogs hurl themselves against the sliding glass door like furry protestors demanding civil rights. Their eyes will say, We are family, so that we mercifully let them free to sniff us and beg for food.

    I’ll eat my 2-pound burger without the brioche buns, which will trigger my brother-in-law Daniel to give me that look. You know the one. The “Oh, you’re dieting again” look, equal parts amusement and subtle mockery. I’ll explain that I began my latest odyssey—The Protein’s Progress—on April 10, and as of yesterday, I’m down 14 pounds. I will present this as fact, not brag. He will respond with his eyes, which will sparkle with skepticism, the kind that says we’ve seen this episode before.

    Once macros are discussed and dismissed, we’ll drift—inevitably—into our usual techno-futurist rabbit hole. Daniel will extol the revolutionary power of 3-D printers, which, according to him, can now build electric cars, houses, power generators, and possibly an emotional support animal, all at half the cost of corporate versions. He’ll pivot to ChatGPT, lamenting its encroachment on college classrooms and human employment in general, before predicting a future where we all live in 3-D-printed orchard communes—rudderless, jobless, and governed by self-appointed mayors fluent in blockchain and Blender.

    I’ll tell him this sounds less like an economic forecast and more like a limited series on HBO Max starring Pedro Pascal and an emotionally damaged android. We’ll laugh.

    Then comes dessert.

    I’ll admire the cakes I brought—one Paradise, one Lilikoi, both from King’s Hawaiian Bakery—and initially, nobly, decline. I will be strong. I will not cave.

    Then my sister-in-law will appear with a Costco-sized tub of Kirkland French Vanilla and start ladling it over thick slices of passionfruit-laced cake, and I will feel something in my chest shift. Not a heart attack—worse. It will be a spiritual failure.

    Excusing myself, I’ll go to the bathroom, stare into the mirror, and whisper, “It’s Mother’s Day. You’re allowed.”

    But the mirror will say, Are you, though?

  • Pedagogical Incontinence and Other Nightmares

    Pedagogical Incontinence and Other Nightmares

    Last night, I found myself caught in that classic pedagogical panic dream—the one where you’re supposed to be teaching but haven’t the faintest idea what class you’re in, what subject you’re meant to teach, or whether you’re even wearing pants. In this installment of the recurring nightmare franchise, the setting was not a classroom but a vast beachside arcade—a surreal mash-up of administrative buildings, decrepit apartments, and suspiciously cheerful employees who all seemed to be on the take.

    My only tether to coherence was a middle-aged reentry student named Fred, bald, officious, and inexplicably committed to serving as my personal secretary. Fred wore the expression of a man who once managed a Kinko’s in Bakersfield and had never fully recovered. He trailed me through the maze of kiosks and clammy hallways, reminding me of when my night classes began and which lecture I was supposed to pull out of thin air. He was part calendar app, part parole officer.

    Then Fred vanished. Just like that. I was suddenly alone and bladder-full, desperately seeking a bathroom that refused to stay in one place. The rest of the dream dissolved into a fevered montage of my failed search for a bathroom: dead-ends, hills of ice plant slick with dream-dew, craggy rock climbs worthy of a National Geographic feature on confused professors, and an aquatic plunge into time itself. I dove through the Paleozoic, drifted across the Devonian, waded through the Carboniferous—each era choked with psychedelic fossil-fish and haunting evolutionary whispers. And still, no bathroom. My urgency transcended epochs.

    When I awoke—sweating, humbled, and dry—I was left with one existential question: Was Fred my inner adult, the stoic bureaucrat of my soul? And without him, am I just an overgrown child, lost in a shifting dreamscape, chronically unprepared, and forever in pursuit of a bathroom that may not exist?

  • The Shop Foreman of My Own Dysfunction and Other Life Chapters

    The Shop Foreman of My Own Dysfunction and Other Life Chapters

    At 63, I now divide my life into chapters—not by achievements or milestones, but by bone density, hormone decay, and the gradual hardening of the frontal cortex. Think of it as an anatomical calendar, where each page curls with protein shakes, pretension, and the occasional existential crisis.

    Chapter One: The Barbara Eden Years.
    Childhood wasn’t about innocence—it was about Cap’n Crunch. Bowls of it. Oceans of sweetened corn rubble. I dreamed not of firetrucks or baseball cards but of living inside Barbara Eden’s genie bottle—a plush, velvet-lined fever dream of satin pillows and cleavage. If Barbara Eden wasn’t beaming into my imagination, there was always Raquel Welch in fur bikinis or Barbara Hershey smoldering her way across a screen. This was hormonal awakening served with a side of sugar coma.

    Chapter Two: The Strength Delusion.
    By twelve, I was slamming Bob Hoffman’s bulk-up protein like it was communion wine. At Earl Warren Junior High, I became a Junior Olympic Weightlifter—a gladiator-in-training who wanted pecs like dinner plates and the gravitas of a Marvel origin story. This was the age of iron worship and adolescent mythology: I wasn’t building muscle—I was forging armor.

    Chapter Three: The Intellectual Flex.
    In my late teens, I realized I had all the social charm of a wet gym sock. So I went cerebral. I buried myself in Kafka, Nabokov, and classical piano, amassing a CD library of Beethoven and Chopin that could rival the Library of Congress. I worked in a wine shop where I learned to pronounce “Bordeaux” with a nasal twang and described Chablis as “crisp with notes of existential regret.” I didn’t just want to be smart—I wanted to be the human embodiment of a New Yorker cartoon.

    Chapter Four: The Shop Foreman of My Own Dysfunction.
    Marriage and employment hit like a cold bucket of reality. Suddenly, I had to function around other human beings. My inner demons—once delightfully antisocial—were now liabilities. I had to manage them like a foreman supervising a warehouse of unruly toddlers armed with crowbars. Turns out, no one wants to be married to a psychological landfill. I had to self-regulate. I had to evolve. This wasn’t personal growth; it was preventative maintenance, or what other people simply call adulthood.

    Chapter Five: Diver Cosplay.
    In my forties, I had just enough disposable income and suburban ennui to start collecting dive watches. Not just one or two. A flotilla. I wanted to be the hero of my own fantasy—a rugged diver-explorer-adventurer who braved Costco parking lots with a Seiko strapped to his wrist. This was less about telling time and more about clinging to the idea that I was still dangerous, or at least interesting. Spoiler: I was neither.

    Chapter Six: The Age of Denial and Delusion.
    These days, the watches still gleam, but now I’m staring down the barrel of cholesterol, visceral fat, and the slow betrayal of my joints. I swing kettlebells five days a week like a garage-dwelling warlock trying to ward off decay. I track my protein like a Wall Street analyst and greet each new biomarker like a hostile corporate audit. Am I aging gracefully? Hardly. I’m white-knuckling my way through geriatric resistance and calling it “wellness.” If I’m Adonis, then somewhere in the attic there’s a Dorian Gray portrait of my pancreas in open revolt.

    I know what’s coming: Chapter Seven. The reckoning. The spiritual compost heap where I either make peace with my body’s betrayal or turn into a bitter relic that grunts through foam-rolling sessions like it’s trench warfare. It’ll be the chapter where I either ascend or unravel—or both.

    And while our chapters differ in flavor, I suspect we’re all reading from the same book. Different fonts, same plot twist: we start with fantasies, build identities, fight the entropy, and eventually, we all kneel before the mirror and ask, “Was that it?”

  • The Abbot’s Misfits

    The Abbot’s Misfits

    I arrived at the Palos Verdes trails just before ten, and the heat was already doing its best impression of a convection oven. The mountainous trails, baking under the relentless sun, were separated from the street by a chain-link fence that looked like it had given up on life years ago. Inside the confines of this makeshift pen, several dozen goats were having the time of their lives munching on dry grass as if it were the most gourmet hay in existence. Their faces were a mix of innocent curiosity and that absurd kind of adorableness that makes you momentarily consider swearing off lamb chops forever. I made a mental note to “consider veganism” again, a notion I promptly squashed with vivid memories of my O-positive blood rejoicing every time I indulged in a perfectly seared ribeye. Hello, goats—you’re safe because it looks like I’ll stick with beef.

    By the goats, a white tent had been pitched like some sort of mirage, and under it, a circle of chairs was arranged with the precision of a cult meeting—or worse, a corporate team-building exercise. The man who had the audacity to call himself the Abbot greeted me with a grin that suggested we were about to embark on a day of carefree yachting rather than whatever bizarre ritual he had planned. Forget the flowing robes and monastic aura—I was greeted by a fitness model straight out of an overenthusiastic health magazine. Neatly pressed cargo shorts hugged his cycler’s thighs like they had been tailored for the occasion, and his olive T-shirt clung to a body sculpted by what could only be an unholy alliance with a CrossFit gym. 

    A cross-body sling bag was slung over one of his thin yet annoyingly muscular arms, which were covered in veins that seemed to be competing in an under-skin relay race. His jawline could have cut glass, and his neatly sculpted silver hair made him look like he’d stepped out of an L.L.Bean catalog. But it was his eyes that really got me—blazing blue orbs that looked like they belonged on the figurehead of a Viking ship, ready to plunder and pillage. 

    “Graham, come join us,” he said with the kind of enthusiasm that suggested we were minutes away from sipping mimosas on a luxury yacht. “We are just moments away from the interrogation.” The way he said “interrogation” made it sound like a delightful little jaunt instead of, you know, something that involved possible torture or at least a really awkward group discussion.

    The most striking thing about the Abbot wasn’t his absurdly chiseled jawline or his militant posture; it was the overwhelming stench of lavender and rose water that assaulted my senses the moment I got within a hundred yards of him. This man hadn’t just splashed himself with these fragrances—he’d practically marinated in them. It was as if he’d decided to pickle himself in a floral potpourri so potent that it probably had bees tailing him for miles. I half-expected to find petals stuck to his skin.

    As I reluctantly made my way under the tent, I was greeted by the sight of six people slumped in those classic, soul-crushing folding chairs that practically shriek, “We’re only here for the free food.” These weren’t just any ordinary folks. No, these were the future friends, foes, and backstabbers who would weave themselves into the disaster that would soon be my life—though at that moment, they all just looked like they were wondering when the punchline of this bizarre setup was going to drop. Spoiler: It never did.

    Behind them, a table stood like a beacon of false hope. A giant pitcher of cucumber water glistened in the sunlight, promising hydration that would do nothing to wash away the impending madness. But what truly caught my eye was the stack of cakes beside it. They looked innocent enough, these little golden blocks, but I would soon discover that they were the Abbot’s specialty—cornbread cakes made with applesauce, honey, and some vanilla-flavored soy protein powder that tasted suspiciously delicious. These cakes weren’t just a snack; they were a trap, a gateway drug that would soon have me spiraling into a carb-induced dependency I hadn’t seen coming. But let’s not jump ahead—there’s plenty of time to explore how these seemingly harmless cakes would drag me into the Abbot’s world of sweet-smelling insanity.

    For now, let’s just say that in that moment, my biggest mistake wasn’t walking into the tent—it was deciding to stay. But hey, who could resist free “light refreshments”?

    With one arm draped around my back like a used car salesman about to seal a shady deal, the Abbot steered me toward the motley crew assembled under the tent. He flashed a benevolent smile, the kind that makes you wonder if he’s about to offer you enlightenment or swindle you into buying a timeshare in Cancun. “My friends,” he announced with all the pomp of a second-rate cult leader, “Graham has graced us with his presence. He is a college writing instructor with many gifts, though I’ll let him elaborate on those special talents later.” His smile suggested that whatever “gifts” I possessed were about to be squeezed out of me like juice from a lemon.

    He pointed at each member of the ragtag group, starting with Abigail, a woman in her early fifties who looked like she’d been carved out of a block of pale, pasty clay by a very angry sculptor. Her squat frame and monkish haircut didn’t do her any favors, but she smiled with the kind of pride usually reserved for people who’ve just completed their first marathon, despite the fact that she hailed from Gorman—a town so small it might as well not exist—where she’d spent her youth dodging aggressive chickens on her parents’ farm. Abigail proudly raised three fingers, showcasing them as if they were battle scars, and regaled us with tales of surviving on a teeth-rotting diet of PayDay bars and orange Fanta until she discovered The Abbot’s life-altering cornbread cakes. You’d think she’d found the Holy Grail, but instead, it was just some glorified baked goods.

    Next up was Larry, a man in his late forties who had apparently modeled his look on a 1970s mafia reject. His long, slicked-back hair and tinted sunglasses made him look like he was auditioning for the role of “Skeevy Casino Manager” in an off-off-Broadway production. Dressed in black jeans and a too-tight white T-shirt that clung to his muscular upper body like a bad decision, he had the kind of physique that screamed “I skipped leg day,” with spindly legs that looked like they’d snap under the weight of his overly pumped chest. Larry had once been a professional gambler until every casino in the area wisely decided he was bad for business. Now, he managed an upscale Mexican restaurant at Del Amo Mall—a stone’s throw from my house—where he spent his days chain-drinking Red Bull and dreaming of the good old days. “I was probably killing myself drinking all those chemicals and caffeine,” he said, “but thanks to the Abbot and his cornbread cakes, I’m learning the true path.” 

    Larry’s brother Stinky, who looked like he’d just crawled out of the primordial ooze, sat next to him. With shaggy blond hair, deep pockmarks, and a forehead that could have been used as a Neanderthal fossil exhibit, Stinky was the kind of guy who seemed to wear his heartbreak on his sleeve—and his face. In his late thirties and still stuck in a dead-end job at a Costco warehouse, he was the embodiment of a bad country song. His high school sweetheart had skipped town with his engagement ring and now worked as a “hostess” at various questionable establishments in Miami. “Self-pity is my addiction,” he confessed, as if he’d just admitted to a crippling heroin habit. But don’t worry—the Abbot was going to give him a “second shot at life,” presumably with a side of cornbread cakes.

    Maurice shuffled forward, a short, wiry guy with a dark complexion. Looking much younger than his age of forty, his kid’s face was set in a permanent grimace, like he’d just stepped in something nasty and couldn’t shake the stench. He was dressed with the precision of a man who either had nowhere else to go or was meticulously planning his escape. His crisp, white-collared sports shirt and navy blue shorts looked fresh out of the package as if he had bought them specifically for this occasion, only to instantly regret his decision. The sandals on his feet were so spotless they might as well have come with a warning label: “For display purposes only.”

    Maurice radiated the enthusiasm of someone attending a surprise tax audit. If this were a beach day, he’d be the guy hunched under a too-small umbrella, clutching a lukewarm beer like it was his only friend, and glaring daggers at the carefree seagulls circling above, as if they were personally responsible for all the miseries in his life. Every inch of him screamed that he’d rather be anywhere but here, and the irony was that he looked like he was dressed for a casual day out, just not one that involved other human beings.

    To Maurice, this gathering was less of a spiritual intervention and more of a cruel and unusual punishment. His body language said, “I’m here under duress,” and his eyes, narrowed to slits, darted around the group as if calculating the quickest exit. It was clear that Maurice wasn’t here to bare his soul—he was here to endure the ordeal with as much stoic misery as possible. With a degree in computer science and the personality of a dial-up modem, Maurice was the poster child for disillusionment. Recently divorced and demoted from homeowner to condo dweller in Harbor City, he shared this nugget of personal failure with all the enthusiasm of someone recapping their latest colonoscopy. His intro was short, sour, and dripping with enough bitterness to make a lemon blush. You could tell Maurice wasn’t here to find inner peace—he was here because the thought of a one-on-one with the Abbot made him more uncomfortable than the idea of being stuck in a dentist’s chair.

    Sitting next to Maurice was Jason, the group’s designated eye candy. With his languid gray eyes, full lips, and high cheekbones, Jason looked like he’d just stepped off the set of a Calvin Klein ad. But beneath the chiseled exterior was a life insurance salesman and mixed martial arts fighter who’d spent his formative years studying jiu-jitsu and muay thai to protect his siblings from their alcoholic father. His good looks and business success were a smokescreen for the social anxieties and commitment issues that plagued him. “I’m here to find answers,” he said, his voice dripping with the kind of melodrama usually reserved for soap operas.

    Finally, there was Howard Burn, the Abbot’s right-hand man, who looked like he’d been assembled from spare parts left over from a mad scientist’s experiment. Tall and lanky with a head of perfectly coiffed black hair, Howard had the angular, contemplative face of someone who took himself way too seriously. He clutched a notebook in his lap, furiously scribbling notes like a star student at Cult Leader 101. When he introduced himself, it was with all the joy of a man who’d just been informed his house was on fire. “It has been my great pleasure to work for the Abbot for the last three years,” he said, his tone suggesting that “pleasure” was a foreign concept to him. Before joining the Abbot’s merry band of misfits, Howard’s life had been a blur, a meaningless existence spent wandering from one menial job to the next. But the Abbot had changed all that, and for the first time, Howard felt like he had purpose—presumably one that involved handing out a lot of cornbread cakes.

    The Abbot beamed at Howard like a proud father, the kind who gives his kid a pat on the back for finally tying his own shoes. “Well said, my son,” his smile seemed to convey as if the entire room was one big happy family. 

    But then the interrogation began, and any illusion of a cozy kumbaya moment evaporated faster than a politician’s promise after election day.

    The Abbot, who’d suddenly transformed from a benevolent guru into a reality TV judge on a power trip, fixed his steely gaze on Abigail. “We’ll start with you,” he declared, like a dentist about to extract a tooth without anesthesia. “Small-town girl, former fast-food overlord, now a landscaper, and you’re still spiraling from that breakup. Jennifer, wasn’t it? She moved in with someone else—someone you actually considered a friend—and now you’re wallowing in betrayal like a sad country song. All this wallowing has blinded you from your gifts.”

    Abigail blinked, probably wishing she could shrink into her cargo shorts and disappear. “I don’t have any gifts that I know of,” she muttered, clearly hoping that modesty might serve as an escape hatch.

    The Abbot’s smile was as sharp as a guillotine. “Oh, but there’s the matter of your left pinkie, now a charming little hook, thanks to your early attempts at butchering a pumpkin with a serrated knife. What were you, eight years old? Trying to carve a jack-o’-lantern or auditioning for a role in Sweeney Todd?”

    Abigail nodded meekly.

    “Show them,” the Abbot commanded as if this was the grand unveiling of some macabre art piece.

    Obediently, Abigail held out her hand, and there it was: her pinkie, eternally frozen in a grotesque hook. The finger, sliced at the joint below the knuckle, was now more calcified appendage than human flesh—a monument to bad luck and worse kitchen skills.

    “Yes, the hook,” the Abbot intoned, as if he were introducing the world’s eighth wonder. “A marvel, truly. It saved your life during that robbery in Barstow, blinded your would-be thief like a weaponized claw, and has been a godsend for lugging groceries into the house. You’ve even used it to hook tools while landscaping, but you’ve been missing out on its real potential.”

    Abigail stared at the Abbot like he’d just told her she could time travel with her toenails.

    “What you don’t realize,” he continued, his voice dripping with condescension, “is that your little pinkie isn’t just a handy-dandy grocery hook. It’s a supernatural antenna. Whenever you’re near something or someone steeped in dark secrets or supernatural energy, your pinkie will tingle, twitch, or maybe even do the macarena—whatever it does to warn you that you’re in the presence of danger. You’ve got a sixth sense attached to your hand, my dear.”

    The Abbot then motioned for her to stand up. “Go on, stand next to Maurice and wave your pinkie in front of him like you’re dowsing for water. But don’t actually touch him; just let your psychic appendage do its thing.”

    Abigail, clearly wondering what sort of circus act she’d signed up for, obliged. As she moved her pinkie around Maurice’s head, she wrinkled her nose. “There’s something off about his head,” she announced, as Maurice stared ahead with the same enthusiasm as a DMV clerk.

    “Something wrong? With Maurice’s head?” the Abbot said, feigning shock like a bad soap opera actor. “You don’t say! But you’re right. His head is literally messed up.”

    Maurice, looking like he’d just been told his dog died, barely reacted.

    The Abbot turned to Maurice, his tone shifting to that of a doctor delivering a grim prognosis. “Maurice, my boy, you suffer from migraines, but not just any migraines. No, your headaches are like the universe’s cruel joke—they’re precursors to natural disasters, the kind of catastrophes people write disaster movies about. They’re called Black Swan Events. You’ve got the power to sense them before they happen, but until you harness this gift, you’re just a walking, talking barometer of doom. Learn to control it, and you might just be able to save us from the next apocalypse—or at least predict when we’ll need to evacuate.”

    Maurice’s expression remained blank, perhaps pondering whether he’d wandered into a cult or just the world’s weirdest self-help group.

    Abigail, meanwhile, looked at her pinkie like it was a divining rod, realizing that in this absurd reality, even her freakish hook might have its own twisted kind of magic.

    The Abbot, with an air of condescending benevolence, motioned to Abigail to walk toward Stinky. She raised her pinkie—now more hook than finger—over the simian-faced warehouse worker, who stared at it like it was a deranged bumblebee. 

    “His nose,” she declared with the gravitas of someone revealing the cure for cancer. “He can smell things.”

    “Very good,” the Abbot crooned as if speaking to a particularly dim-witted child.

    “But not normal things,” she added, turning to the Abbot for reassurance. “He can smell evil!”

    The Abbot nodded, his eyes twinkling with mock seriousness.

    “He can smell it in people. He knows when they’re lying.”

    “And what does it smell like, pray tell?” The Abbot asked, leaning in as if the answer might be the meaning of life.

    “Ammonia,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

    Stinky chimed in, “I smell ammonia all the time.”

    “Of course, you do,” the Abbot said, as if this were the most natural thing in the world.

    Stinky turned to his brother Larry with a smirk. “When you said you couldn’t loan me that money, I smelled ammonia. You were lying to me!”

    The Abbot, now in full guru mode, said, “Your nose, Stinky, is a lie detector.”

    Stinky’s face twisted into a look of bewildered relief. “All my life, I thought I had some kind of medical condition. When I was a kid, they ran all these tests because I kept saying everything smelled like cleaning supplies.”

    “Of course they found nothing,” the Abbot said, taking a languid sip of cucumber water as if he were above such pedestrian concerns.

    “But if the world is full of evil, why don’t I smell ammonia all the time?” Stinky asked, clearly not understanding the subtlety of his “gift.”

    “Evil, my dear boy, comes in shades,” the Abbot said, like he was explaining quantum physics to a toddler. “You need to fine-tune your nose to detect varying levels of malevolence.”

    He then turned his attention to Larry, who looked like he’d rather be anywhere but here. The Abbot motioned for Abigail to wave her pinkie hook over him, and she did so with all the enthusiasm of someone stirring a pot of gruel. She looked baffled. “I’m not getting anything… wait, there’s a pulse, like a two-four beat.”

    Larry grinned, “That’s ‘Float On’ by The Floaters. I listen to it whenever I’m anxious. Helps me chill.”

    The Abbot’s face soured at Larry as if his disciple’s slow thinking were testing his patience. “You don’t feel pain, do you?”

    “Not really,” Larry said, shrugging. “Last year, I had a root canal. Brought my earbuds and played ‘Float On’ on repeat, and it was like I wasn’t even in the chair.”

    The Abbot sighed, clearly disappointed. “You rely too much on your phone. You must learn to summon the song within your mind. Only then can you truly suppress pain.”

    Larry’s face twisted in confusion. “But isn’t pain a good thing? Like, a warning system?”

    The Abbot’s patience wore thin. “Most humans crumble at the slightest discomfort. Your power allows you to transcend pain, to unlock your full potential. Or would you rather remain a common oaf?”

    Larry still didn’t look convinced, but the Abbot wasn’t one to be deterred by something as trivial as logic. His gaze slid over to Jason, a guy who looked vaguely familiar, like one of those retail cashiers you always see but never remember where. Jason was already fidgeting like a kid caught sneaking candy, his nerves practically screaming “Get me out of here.” 

    “Now, let’s see what our friend Abigail can sense about you,” the Abbot said, leaning in with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for people about to tell you you’re in for the deal of a lifetime—if you just hand over your credit card first.

    Abigail, that beacon of confidence, hovered her pinkie in the air like she was trying to tune into Jason’s internal radio. Finally, her pinkie landed somewhere near his waist. “Your back… it’s messed up,” she declared, like she was diagnosing a flat tire.

    Jason winced. “Chronic pain from a car accident two years ago. Acupuncture helps, but it’s still pretty bad.”

    The Abbot sneered like Jason had just admitted to preferring instant coffee. “Acupuncture? Weakness incarnate. Your pain is a gift, Jason. Embrace it, and you’ll become five times stronger than the strongest man alive. Ignore it, and you’ll remain the pathetic creature you are.”

    Jason blinked, trying to process the avalanche of nonsense the Abbot had just unloaded. “So, my back pain is… super strength?” He looked like he was about to ask if this whole thing was an elaborate prank.

    “Precisely,” the Abbot said, with the smug satisfaction of a man who just solved the world’s energy crisis by suggesting we all power our homes with good intentions. “But only if you stop running from it.”

    I realized, with a sudden jolt, that Jason wasn’t just vaguely familiar—I knew him. But from where? Fidgeting in my seat, I blurted out, “Jason, do we know each other?”

    Before Jason could answer, the Abbot’s gaze swung toward me with all the subtlety of a wrecking ball. His nostrils flared like a bull about to charge, and I was suddenly sure he could smell my fear. “You’ll get your turn, but do not speak out of place,” he snapped, like a third-grade teacher reprimanding a kid for talking during recess.

    He turned back to Abigail, clearly eager to get back to his performance of “Mystical Leader Extraordinaire.” “See what you can find out about Graham,” he instructed, as though I were next in line at a spiritual deli counter.

    Abigail moved her magical pinkie over me, her face twisting in confusion like she was trying to figure out a Sudoku puzzle with half the numbers missing. “I’m getting… flapping. Like wings. Bats? No… crows! Huge crows!” She said this with the conviction of someone announcing the discovery of a new planet.

    The Abbot’s eyes gleamed like a kid who just found the last Golden Ticket. “Yes, Graham has an affinity for crows—Gravefeathers, to be exact. They bring him messages from the other side, but he must learn to listen.”

    I raised an eyebrow, now officially in *what the hell* territory. “Gravefeathers? Is this some kind of joke?”

    “Far from it,” the Abbot said with a smile so condescending it could curdle milk. “The Gravefeathers have chosen you. Your task is to decode their messages, to fulfill our mission.”

    “And what exactly is this mission?” I asked, now thoroughly regretting every life choice that had led me to this tent.

    “All in good time,” the Abbot said, his tone so patronizing it was a wonder he didn’t pat me on the head. “For now, you must prepare.”

    As if on cue, Howard Burn—looking like a villainous butler from a B-movie—emerged from the shadows carrying trays covered in tinfoil, like a waiter in some dystopian restaurant. “As a token of your commitment,” the Abbot intoned, “I offer you each a cornbread cake.”

    My skepticism reached new heights. “What’s the catch?” I asked, eyeing the tray like it might contain some kind of mind-control device. “Is this cake magic?”

    The Abbot’s face twisted into that all-too-familiar condescending smirk. “Magic? No. But consuming it is a test of trust, a way to align yourselves with the universe’s energies. And it tastes pretty damn good, too.”

    Howard handed me a slice, and against my better judgment, I took a bite. To my horror, it was delicious. The cake was a golden, moist masterpiece, with a caramelized top that hinted at hidden sweetness. The flavors of honey and vanilla danced with almond and cornmeal, while a subtle cinnamon undertone lingered just long enough to make me question all my life choices up to this point.

    I devoured the cake like a starving man, only to find myself choking on my own gluttony. The Abbot, ever the gracious host, handed me a glass of cucumber water, which I gulped down as if my life depended on it. 

    “I could eat this for breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” I mumbled, wiping crumbs from my face like the classy individual I am.

    Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a large black crow perched on the gate post, its fiery eyes boring into me with the unmistakable message: Enjoy your cake, you idiot. You’re in for one hell of a ride.

  • The Lion Man

    The Lion Man

    I recently had a dream that put me face to face with evil—not the metaphorical kind, not garden-variety wickedness or tax-season despair. No, this was evil with a proper noun. The Lion Man. A creature of mythic malevolence, stitched together from nightmares and paranoia, and now inexplicably headlining a lecture in a packed auditorium.

    I was in the front row, naturally—because why wouldn’t my psyche give me VIP seating for its own unraveling?

    Onstage stood the Lion Man: nearly seven feet tall, dressed in a powder-blue gangster suit that shimmered with the kind of menace only polyester can summon. His face was unmistakably leonine, all fangs and symmetry, framed by a magnificent, thick mane that looked equal parts MGM mascot and Old Testament prophet gone feral. His eyes—icy blue and depthless—held the kind of hatred you don’t recover from. Looking into them felt like staring at the sun: too much exposure and you’re permanently damaged.

    He gripped a lectern and delivered a furious, gesticulating sermon, his arms slicing through the air like cleavers. But I couldn’t hear a word. Not one syllable. His mouth moved—angrily, emphatically—but all I heard was a dark, atonal soundtrack swelling behind him, as if his words existed in a frequency my soul refused to translate.

    Then, things got worse.

    At some invisible signal—maybe a silent scream—several people wheeled a phone booth onto the stage. It had the sad, sterile shine of a prop pulled from a David Lynch nightmare. The Lion Man stepped inside. The roof slid open like the lid of a cursed urn, and animals—real, living animals—were dropped in from above.

    What followed was carnage. He devoured them all. Cows, pigs, zebras, horses, dogs, cats. No hesitation. No remorse. I could hear the crunching—those surgically sharp teeth pulverizing bone like brittle kindling. One by one, their skeletons were spat out from the phone booth like nightmarish confetti. I sat paralyzed as femurs and ribs rained down, the floor littered with vertebrae and splintered jaws.

    When it was over, the Lion Man stepped out casually, as if he’d just wrapped a press conference. He dusted bits of fur and sinew off the lapel of his gleaming suit. Then he looked at me.

    No, into me.

    Our eyes locked. I wanted to recoil, hide, burst into flame—anything but be seen by that gaze. But I was frozen, a slab of pure terror, incapable of blinking. He stared at me as if to say, You’re next.

    I woke up at 4 a.m., choking on dread. But the dream hadn’t entirely ended. I could feel him in the room. He was sitting on the edge of my bed. Not metaphorically. Not symbolically. He was there—massive, radiating cold, breathing slowly. The terror was so complete I couldn’t move, couldn’t even gasp for air. It felt like being buried under ice.

    Then—tap tap tap.

    I turned my head, barely.

    Outside the window was Gravefeather—the crow. My familiar friend. My unsolicited spirit guide. He was perched on the sill, eyes glinting with that uncanny, measured intelligence. He tapped once more.

    The Lion Man noticed. And then he vanished—dissolved like fog in sunlight. Just like that. Gone.

    Gravefeather and I locked eyes. No theatrics. No nods. Just understanding.

    “Thank you,” I whispered aloud, the paralysis receding. Gravefeather paused a beat longer, then flapped into the night, leaving me shaken, grateful, and completely unable to sleep again.

  • Gravefeather and the Temple of Iron

    Gravefeather and the Temple of Iron

    At 63, with fifty years of training behind me and enough injuries to fill a radiologist’s scrapbook, I don’t pay a therapist two hundred bucks an hour to dissect my existential drift. No, I take my angst to the garage and sweat it out under the cold, unforgiving eye of a steel kettlebell.

    This isn’t the gym-as-penance nonsense of my youth. I’m in it for the long haul now—grease in the joints, not fire. I train smart. No heroic max-outs, no flirtations with the ER. I chant my gospel, delivered by YouTube prophet Mark Wildman: “The purpose of working out today is to not hurt yourself so you can work out tomorrow.”

    Prepped with a concoction of 50 grams of protein (half yogurt, half whey, all optimism) and 5 grams of creatine, I step into the garage like a monk entering a steam-soaked temple. Within minutes, I’m sweating like a politician in a polygraph booth, slipping into that endorphin-laced trance where everything hurts and yet somehow heals.

    But my solitude never lasts.

    The parade begins: delivery drivers dropping packages by the gate like sacrificial offerings. They nod. We chat. They ask about my workouts. Sometimes they want kettlebell tips, which I deliver like the gym-floor Socrates I’ve become.

    Then come the other visitors—the crows. Not just crows. Hypercrows. Schwarzenegger crows. Hulking, obsidian-feathered beasts with the posture of Roman generals and the swagger of barbell-swinging demons. These things don’t fly—they strut. They don’t chirp—they taunt.

    One in particular has claimed me. I’ve named him Gravefeather, which feels appropriately mythic. He has the pecs of a cartoon strongman and the gaze of someone who’s seen civilizations fall and isn’t impressed. He parks himself on the fence or the garage roof, staring me down mid-swing with an expression that says, “Your form is garbage and mortality is laughing at you.”

    I know he remembers me. Crows do that. He remembers that I’m no threat. He remembers I talk to myself. He probably knows my macros. And when I lock eyes with him, mid-swing, sweat blurring my vision, I swear he’s thinking, “Nice hinge, old man. Shame about your knees.”

    Sometimes he’s perched twenty feet away while I’m gasping through Turkish get-ups, his eyes drilling into me with cosmic disdain. I hear him say, without speaking, “Enjoy your little routine, fleshbag. Entropy is undefeated.”

    But I argue back. I say, “Just because we’re mortal doesn’t mean we surrender to chaos. This is my sanctuary. I honor it. I will not be mocked by a sentient pigeon in a tuxedo.”

    Gravefeather cocks his head. He seems to consider this. Then, with the faintest nod of something like respect, he lifts off into the blue, cawing a tune that sounds like the chorus of a forgotten Paul McCartney song—melancholy, strangely triumphant, vaguely judgmental.

    And I return to the bell. I swing. I breathe. I endure. Gravefeather may be watching, but the iron remains mine.